Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(94)
“Fine. I’ll stay here until you get back, and then we can contin—”
“—and then I’m going to bed.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, her words made his brown eyes darken to black, and suddenly, for the first time since running into him, she realized two things:
One, though she’d always known that there was an uncanny similarity between his eyes and Ava Grace’s, now she was struck with the full uniqueness of it. They were the same unusual color. The same deep, dark, soulful brown that turned black when their emotions flared, and for a split second, it made her feel weak to see the resemblance. The man she’d loved so desperately and the child she’d die for had the same eyes. She could get lost in his all over again if she wasn’t careful.
And two, Erik Rexford was even hotter at twenty-seven than he’d been at twenty-one. He was built and big, muscular and strong, his jet-black hair as thick as ever, and the way he was looking at her right now made her traitorous body remember how he’d touched her, how he’d loved her, how she’d writhed in his arms, begging for more. She couldn’t concentrate on this conversation anymore. She needed to get away from him.
“Please excuse me,” she said, though she didn’t turn and start walking down the hall. Her booted feet remained rooted, and her cheeks blazed with sudden heat. She stood there in front of her door, staring down at him, wishing that her attraction to him had died with her dreams.
“How long are you stayin’?” he asked, his tongue slipping between his lips to wet them.
She reached up to cover her cheeks, and she dropped his eyes. Fuck him. He knew exactly what he was doing, which somehow gave her the strength not to fall for it. He’d willingly used her for entertainment six years ago. She wasn’t available for his amusement anymore.
“None of your business.”
He huffed out a breath of air, shaking his head. “You’re somethin’ else.”
“I’m something else?” she demanded, hackles raising as she crossed her arms. “How do you live with yourself?”
He shot up from the floor, suddenly towering over her. “How do I live with myself? Probably because I never did anythin’ wrong!”
She scoffed. “Is that what you tell yourself?”
“Did I promise you somethin’ that I didn’t deliver, Laire?”
Yes! Your honesty! Your respect! Your love! You promised all those things to me, and you didn’t fucking deliver! Instead you lied to me, fucked around with another girl behind my back, never really loved me, got me pregnant, got engaged to her, and broke my fucking heart!
She gasped, her inner monologue so indescribably painful, it knocked the wind from her lungs and left her breathless, gaping at him like a fish on a dock about to die.
Except I’m not about to die, she reminded herself, sucking in a big breath of air. He doesn’t have that kind of hold on me anymore.
“Go fuck yourself,” she bit out, hating her eyes for welling with tears, hating him for the unconscionable way he was speaking to her when he’d willfully deceived her and smashed her heart to smithereens.
He flinched, his head snapping back like she’d slapped him. “Real pretty words, Laire.”
“You don’t . . .” Her voice broke, but she took a deep breath and met his eyes, feeling stronger. “You don’t deserve any pretty words from me.”
His eyes widened as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
“What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
Behind Laire, she heard the noise of a door unlatching, and when she turned around, Ava Grace was standing in the open doorway in bare feet, a cartoon-princess nightgown thin on her slight body. She looked up at Laire with sleepy eyes, cocking her head to the side and frowning at her mother’s tears.
“Are you okay, Mama?” she asked in a small, worried voice. “Are you cryin’?”
“No, baby. Just something in my eye.” Laire leaned down and reached for her daughter, lifting her into her arms and pushing Ava Grace’s head onto her shoulder. She smoothed out her tangled, dark-red hair and whispered, “I’m fine, baby. I’m sorry we woke you up.”
“We?” With her head on Laire’s shoulder, Ava Grace gasped and exclaimed, “Oh! It’s Oscar! Hi, Oscar!”
“Hey, there, Ava Grace,” said Erik, and Laire was grateful to be facing the room, not her onetime true love, because she wouldn’t have been able to conceal the riot of emotions on her face as she listened to her daughter greet her father for the very first time.
“You and Mama woke me up.”
“Sorry about that, darlin’,” said Erik, and Laire shuddered inside, him calling Ava Grace the endearment darlin’, which she’d loved so desperately, making her feel a million different things, each more complicated and confusing than the next. She was holding their daughter, and Erik was calling her darlin’, the same way he’d called her darlin’ an eternity ago.
Oh, my heart.
“I gotta go back to bed,” Ava Grace told him.
“I guess so,” said Erik, his voice gentle and warm, just as it used to be so many years ago, when he was speaking to Laire. She closed her eyes, almost unable to keep more tears from falling, her heart clenching with a longing that she didn’t want to feel.